Interview Lead Users
While identifying customer needs, the team may have sought out or encountered lead users. Lead users are those users of a product who experience needs months or years before the majority of the market and stand to benefit substantially from a product innovation (vonHippe!, 1 988). Frequently these leadusers will have already invented solutions to meet their needs. This is particularly true among highly technical user communities, such as those in the medical or scientific fields. Lead users may be sought out in the market for which the team is developing the new product, or they may be found in markets for products implementing some of the subfunctions of the product.
In the hand held nailer case, the nailer team consulted with the building contractors from the PBS television
series This Old House in order to solicit new concepts. These lead users, who are exposed to tools from many manufacturers, made many interesting
observations about the weaknesses in existing tools, but in this case did not provide new product concepts